Bottomline: Yu Yunique at Rs 4,999 is a perfect device for a first time smart phone user as they can enjoy the goodness of Android ecosystem and 4G in one device.

Micromax’s subsidiary brand, Yu earlier this month launched an affordable 4G smart-phone the YUYuniquein India at Rs. 4,999.The smart-phone will be exclusively available on Snap-deal through flash sales staring September 15. While the device specifications appear impressive for the price.

Design and build quality

The design of YU Yunique is fairly common-rounded edges, regular candy bar form factor- but has one unique component, a large metal ring around the camera module. YU calls it “Saturn ring design”. Which makes this smart-phone look a little different and bit more premium than its competitors.

The handset looks a lot like the Yuphoria, we would rather call it to be the younger brother of Yuphoria with similar design cues, but without the signature side metal rim. Though this one is completely made out of plastic, it still doesn’t feel cheap.

The front is nice and black. The display is 4.7-inch HD Corning Gorilla glass display, which to our surprise has got good brightness, but it is slightly reflective at the same time and does attract fingerprints / smudges. On the top the display sits the front facing 2-megapixel camera with proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, earpiece grill with notification LED inside, and a very subtle YU branding in the center.The back cover has a soft matte coating, which not only helps the phone hide smudges but also helps it look and feel more sophisticated.

The power lock / unlock key sits in between the volume up and down keys on the right edge, and the left edge has got nothing. On the top is 3.5mm audio jack and bottom has the Micro-USB charging / data port.

Display

The Yu Yunique boasts of a 4.7-inch HD (720 x 1280 pixels) Fully Laminated IPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.The viewing angles, sunlight legibility and colour reproduction are all good. Brightness and contrast levels are pretty good, and you would have no problem in reading text under direct sunlight.

Camera

The Yunique has an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel one on the front. The rear camera is particularly, impressive. It clicks images that have lots pf details and a little over saturated. But the impresses part is the ability of the camera’s which keeps noise low in low light shots. Unless you are clicking in dark. In good light too, the Yunique is capable of clicking nice photos.

The phone can record Full HD videos. The quality is fairly good and we did not notice any focus related issues while recording video footage. The front camera can click 2-megapixel images, which are good for occasional use.

Software and performance

YU Yunique runs latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box. Yunique ships with an almost-unmodified version of Android Lollipop. While we prefer stock Android Lollipop to almost anything else that is out there, if you are a fan of CynaogenMod, YU has you covered. It says that next version of CynaogenMod, which will be based on Android Lollipop, will be available to Yunique users at a later date.

The combination on papers is definitely impressive for the price, but it doesn’t deliver in reality. Sometimes we were really happy with the multitasking and then sometimes it was disappointing. The 1GB RAM seems insufficient too. But that being said, we still feel Yunique is an okay performer, although inconsistency remains a factor.

Talking about the gaming experience, the device can smoothly run games like Candy Crush, Temple Run, Subway Surfer and more. But for the heavy games like Asphalt 8, the gameplay lagged significantly.In our benchmark testing, it scored Antutu- 20717, vellamo- 1963, Quadrant-13319.

Audio quality on the Yu Yunique is good. The output on headphones is clear and loud. Loudspeaker output is decent as well, but it is little low. It also features FM radio. The phone even supports USB OTG and video playback through the flash disk was smooth too.

Apart from the 8GB (4.08GB user available) internal storage, there is support for microSD card (up to 32GB). There is an option to move apps to SD card as well.

Battery

YU Yunique smartphone bundled with 2000 mAhbuilt-in battery. We use the phone for day to day work like attending 15 to 20 calls a day, using social sites, playing music of half an hour and some gaming it lasts for more than a day which is not bad at all.